


I've Only Got One

by objetpetita



Series: Intimacies [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: As far as I'm concerned it's all slash, Depends how you read it, Gen, Humor, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 13:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objetpetita/pseuds/objetpetita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the first couple of weeks at 221B Baker Street, John decides how to go about being Sherlock Holmes's friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Only Got One

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first tentative step into writing for this fandom, and this fandom in particular is full of such mind-bogglingly brilliant writers, which is all just to say: feedback is most welcome, and I am proud but nervous to be joining you all.
> 
> This is meant to take place in the first few weeks of Sherlock and John's acquaintance, and it is not especially attentive to the events of the series after "A Study in Pink." A kind of soft-AU, you might say. An alternative imagining of how a friendship like theirs might have developed. There are also few more storylines unspooling in my head, so this may well evolve into a larger (more explicitly slashy) work, though the unfortunate fact is I write at a frankly glacial pace.

John realized, lying in bed on his first night at 221B Baker Street, that he would have to decide immediately if he ever wanted to be able to keep anything from Sherlock Holmes. If Sherlock could deduce the major events in the life story of any complete stranger, then it was certain he’d deduced the tiniest details of a person’s life by the time he’d known them a week. Or he would deduce them, if he felt it was relevant. In that case, this moment was the only opportunity John would have to learn Sherlock at least as quickly as Sherlock learned him.

It wasn’t that he minded Sherlock knowing about Harry, about Afghanistan, about the gun. In fact, he rather preferred not having had to explain any of it. Still, he barely knew the man, and what if something turned up that John didn’t want Sherlock to know about just by glancing up his left nostril or something equally absurd? Yes. It would be best to have the _option_ of privacy from Sherlock, even if he didn’t immediately have cause to use it.

John was under no illusion that he could so much as begin to be as acute and penetrating as the whirling madman in the other bedroom; no, of course not. But even the most powerful weapon has its weaknesses—a blind spot in its sights or a distance it can’t cover. He would merely have to keep a look out for Sherlock’s blind spot, a little pocket where John could put things out of sight if he ever needed to.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Sherlock, John thought half apologetically. It was just good sense.

 

As those first couple of weeks went on, John got to know a great many things about his new flatmate. He learned that Sherlock’s rage had two forms: the billowing, roaring kind reserved for incompetent lab technicians and the biting childish kind only Mycroft could incite. He learned that Sherlock would walk past piles on piles of mess for days but would sporadically, all of a sudden, decide to clean everything up at once, even going so far as to scrub the _undersides_ of the tables. On one occasion John would undoubtedly remember for the rest of his earthly days, he learned that in the extremities of boredom, Sherlock could become irrepressibly interested in cataloging his flatmate’s responses to startling stimuli, like the bang of a frying pan dropped from a great height (John rolled to the floor and and reached for his gun), or a blindfold jerked over his eyes (John nearly wrenched Sherlock’s arm off and reached for his gun), or a sharp prod to the leg with a poker from the fireplace (John spun out of bed, still wrapped in his sheets, and reached for his gun).

For his part, John kept no secrets on purpose from Sherlock; he knew enough to realize the moment he actively tried to guard a secret would be the moment Sherlock decided never to rest until he’d deduced it. In fact, he continued to find Sherlock’s quickness both astounding and comforting, even (well, especially) when it turned up comments like, “Your wrists were injured when you were a small child, likely at the hands of an adult figure you looked up to.” John had only nodded, recalling the weeks he spent with both hands immobilized; his only uncle, Peter, no longer invited to family Christmases afterward. He’d never whispered a word of it since, even to his therapist, but here was Sherlock Holmes, saying it aloud for him.

There were moments—especially after Sherlock said the thing about his wrists, released his gaze, and simply turned back to whatever he’d been doing—when John thought he might not ever  _need_ to hide a thing from Sherlock Holmes. Those moments caused startling ripples of warmth deep in a lobe of his brain that felt out of practice, and John was never sure what to make of that. Inevitably, though, he reminded himself: no matter what dusty trusting impulses might have been awakened by this odd (alien, sociopathic, inscrutable, sometimes frankly terrifying) man, it never hurt to have a safety net, a backup plan. Just to have the option, in case something ever did arise that John didn’t want deduced.

Soon, John figured out that the strength of Sherlock’s deductions rested in the man’s uncanny ability to identify patterns. That massive brain stored away miles and miles of data, primarily patterns of human behavior, but also the patterns of chemical reactions, the laws of physics, the symptoms of virtually every poison imaginable. The only things Sherlock Holmes found impenetrable were things for which he hadn’t yet found a pattern. Accordingly, John concluded, the only defense against becoming utterly transparent to Sherlock’s gaze was to introduce randomness to his behaviors around the flat. Nothing obvious, but just enough to reserve some little distance—picking up a book he never would’ve considered reading before, walking the long way round the table to refill his glass, unevenly syncopating the taps of his fingers against the arm of his chair. That last one turned out to be rather fun: Sherlock’s left eye started to twitch ever so minutely as John’s tapping had repeatedly begun and then failed to approximate an organized meter.

 

In their way, then, each carefully observing everything he could about the other, the pair of them started to settle into the rhythm of cohabitating. John felt certain that they’d become friends (probably cemented that right around the moment he shot that cabbie, John supposed), though Sherlock seemed largely unfamiliar with the concept of friendship. They forged a few jokes that only made sense to the two of them (most of those at Anderson’s expense, though one at Mrs. Turner’s married ones’). They sniped at one another when they were preoccupied or irritated. They ordered takeaway together and ate sometimes at the table, but sometimes at their respective desks. In those ways, being Sherlock’s friend was not unlike being anybody else’s friend.

The difference was, whereas normal friendships grew more intimate over time, with Sherlock friendship happened in fits and spurts, all the usual sequences of things jumbled out of order. John helped Sherlock pull a piece of exploded beaker out of his left gluteus maximus, for instance, only six days into their friendship, which meant John had been acquainted with his new friend’s bare arse well before he learned whether the man preferred Chinese to Thai takeaway for dinner.

The glass-in-the-arse incident didn’t stop Sherlock from taking a case the very next day, and John marvelled at his flatmate’s insatiability yet again. Any average person, including himself, would probably take a day or two off after having their doctor and flatmate sew them up in the middle of the kitchen. Sherlock, of course, couldn’t so much as consider taking a day off for anything less than a nine. (“A nine?” John had inquired blankly. “Yes,” Sherlock had said, fluidly pulling the ends of his scarf round his neck. “Scale for measuring injury and incapacitation. A shard of glass barely rates a two.”) So John only shrugged and threw an extra roll of medical tape and a few squares of gauze into the pocket of his coat before he followed Sherlock out the door.

The end of this case was especially dramatic, as not only did Sherlock manage to locate and infiltrate the central hub of a highly illegal prescription drug trading ring, but also managed to get himself dosed with a nonfatal but unarguably massive amount of stimulants and relaxants.

It ended like this: Sherlock burst through the doors of the warehouse out of which the drugs ring was being run, John quick on his heels. Lestrade’s team was just outside, and the detective inspector looked equally irked and pleased to see them. His expression changed quickly to concern when he noticed Sherlock’s uneven gait.

“He got a dose of a pretty creative drug cocktail in there,” John called out to explain. “Nothing damaging in the long-term. But I’m not sure he’ll remember anything that happens between now and tomorrow afternoon.”

The consulting detective planted his feet dramatically in front of the small cluster of officers, ignoring his flatmate, who was trailing close behind. He swayed minutely. “The guilty parties are incapacitated,” he announced, waving vaguely toward the building. And then swayed much more dramatically, his feet stumbling.

Donovan, who was nearest, instinctively reached out a hand. Sherlock started back, a look on his face like she had suddenly turned into a hissing cat.

“Salamander Diazepam,” said Sherlock.

“What?” Donovan objected, crossing her arms. “Is that... are you trying to make fun of my name?”

Sherlock glared. “Salty-wanker Dawn-of-yams.”

“All right, idiot, very funny.” Donovan’s expression was hovering halfway between amusement and annoyance.

Lestrade stepped between them before Donovan could tip further onto the side of annoyance. Sherlock’s expression changed immediately.

“Sherlock, I think we’re—”

In one fluid, unstoppable movement, the consulting detective had grabbed hold of Lestrade’s shoulders with both hands and covered the detective inspector’s mouth with his own. It took John’s brain a few moments before he realized it was a kiss—Sherlock Holmes kissing anybody was so far out of the ordinary, he didn’t recognize the sight of it.

In fact, was... was Lestrade kissing back? Donovan giggled awkwardly. “Sir?”

Lestrade visibly snapped out of it and stepped back. “Jesus,” he said breathlessly. A red tint rose in his cheeks. “What the fuck, Sherlock.”

But Sherlock was already distracted, tottering toward some poor sod who was strapping one of the unconscious drug dealers to a gurney.

 

A few minutes passed in blessed silence after they’d managed to stuff Sherlock into Lestrade’s car. John was assigned to sitting in the back seat with his flatmate, keeping the man from doing something stupid. Donovan had somewhat reluctantly agreed to accompany, on the condition that she could slap him hard if he decided to try kissing out on her. At which Sherlock had scoffed, “As if I would,” and then proceeded to try leapfrogging over John, who’d bent down to tie a shoelace.

In the car, John was watching his flatmate’s reflection in the window, when Sherlock suddenly rested two fingertips on his bottom lip as though he’d just thought of something.

“Sally had a cat. For years, at least four. But she got rid of it shortly after beginning a dalliance with her current and already-married lover. Conclusion: he’s allergic, and she chose his comfort over her own pet—obviously, she’s hoping he leaves his wife.”

Sergeant Donovan sank low in the front seat. “Freak.”

There was no sign that Sherlock had heard the sharp edge in her tone. He merely continued, in a casual voice. “John has slept with three of the same women as his sister has, and this fact is a contributing factor in their mutual desire to speak as infrequently as possible.”

Unfazed, and more pleased about the mistake than anything else, John smiled. “Four, actually.”

His flatmate hissed. “Four. _Damn_ it, there’s always something.” He fell silent for a moment, John assumed to silently berate himself for the oversight. Then, as if to recover from the mistake, Sherlock spoke more loudly. “Lestrade once wanked to the thought of my mouth, and has felt guilty about it ever since.”

Donovan hid the lower half of her face behind the back of her hand. John looked over at Lestrade, whose face had gone red again. In a burst of pity, he tried to intervene. “Sherlock, you can’t just go round talking about people’s... personal habits,” he admonished.

Sherlock waved dismissively. “Dull.” He reached forward and patted Lestrade’s shoulder in what he clearly felt should be a comforting way. “You don’t need to. Feel guilty, I mean. I don’t mind. One can’t always control what pops into one’s head when one’s mind is blurred with the throes of orgasm. But if it’ll make you feel better, perhaps I can dispel the fantasy entirely.”

He bobbed toward the rearview mirror and pulled the most ridiculous face John had ever seen, with his lips twisted up in opposite directions and a surprisingly long tongue stretched up toward his nose. John was overcome. He hadn’t slept in a full 24 hours, he was suddenly the primary caretaker for an idiot genius (or genius idiot), who, by the way, he’d only known a week and was flying high on half a dozen different homemade drugs, and a Detective Inspector for Scotland Yard was currently driving them home with a look on his face like he might actually combust from embarrassment. John lay right down on the seat and laughed the entire way home. Sherlock absently patted his cheek in time with the other hand’s comforting pats to Lestrade’s shoulder.

Back at 221B, they weren’t able to get Sherlock farther than the sofa. John saw Donovan and Lestrade out, muttering apologies and thanks in turn. “Listen,” he said, before closing the door. “I hope you don’t hold it against him, all the... stuff he said. And I’m sorry for laughing and not being any help at all. It’s been... it’s been a long week of adjustment.”

Donovan gave a begrudging nod, and Lestrade smiled weakly. “You’re the one who has to deal with him while he rides out the rest of the high, Dr. Watson,” the detective inspector offered. “Compared to that, I don’t think we’ve got much to complain about.” They traded tentative grins and then John was left alone with his flatmate.

Sherlock had unfurled his entire length on the sofa, his eyes closed. “Do you need anything?” John asked, hovering uncertainly.

Sherlock’s eyes flew open. He stared into John’s face sideways for half a beat, then was on his feet again. He reached out and took John’s hand in his, raising it to eye level. John waited pliantly to see what deductions would follow. Their fingers interlaced as Sherlock twisted his hand into John’s. He squeezed experimentally. With the other hand, he held John’s wrist steady, then slid his fingers in and out of the clasp a few times.

“Do flatmates hold hands?” he mused. Before John could draw a breath to answer, he was going on. “No, I know already. Not usually. Particularly not men.” He looked at John as though for confirmation.

John cleared his throat. “Right,” he agreed, but didn’t remove his hand.

“Pity.” Sherlock’s attention was on their fingers again. “Feels quite good.”

“That’s the drugs talking.” John said, partly to reassure himself. “How about we have a cup of tea and just try to relax, yeah?”

Sherlock nodded and somewhat slowly released his grip.

John was stirring sugar into one of the mugs of tea when two long arms encircled his waist and pulled tight. Dark curls bounced against his face as Sherlock’s head dropped to his shoulder. “I... ah... Sherlock, you should probably...” John trailed off into a small cough. Yes. Coughing seemed to be the thing to do, so he did it again.

“Yes, John, I know it’s the damn drugs,” Sherlock told him. He nearly sounded like his usual self, all exasperated and brusque. But then his nose was behind John’s ear, _nuzzling._ “Embracing is nice. We should embrace more often.”

“To be fair, I have only lived here a week. Usually it takes a bit longer than that to start hugging on a regular basis.”

Sherlock’s answering hum rumbled into the nape of his neck.

“And it seems to me you’re getting a bit further than hugging right now, Sherlock, so maybe it’s best if we take our tea out to the other room now.”

Sitting down to tea did little to divert Sherlock’s attention, however. “Everything feels like _sex_ , John,” he said, sipping thoughtfully. “Figuratively, I mean, obviously I wouldn’t _know_ about it, not experientially.”

John stared fixedly into his mug. Sherlock, in his usual fashion, freely ignored any and all signs of awkwardness and kept talking.

“What I mean is, _touching_ feels... good. I don’t usually like to just touch people for the sake of it, John. Intimacy can be so cloying.”

To that, Sherlock seemed to want a response. Not for the first time in Sherlock’s presence, John decided to pretend the conversation at hand was a normal one like any other.

“So this... this sensual awakening, is that the reason for all the deductions about everyone’s sex lives in the car? And why you kissed Lestrade earlier?”

“Kissed...” Sherlock looked vaguely surprised, as though John had suggested the taps in the bathroom produced piping hot beef stew. “No, of course not. At the time, the drugs were inducing a powerful urge to smoke. I thought, given the argument Lestrade had with his wife this morning, he might’ve given in and bought a pack.”

“You kissed a him to see if he’d been smoking.”

Sherlock pursed his lips. “It seemed the fastest way to gather the necessary data.” He took another calm sip from his tea. “But kissing is nice, isn’t it?” John looked up to find unsettling eyes fixing him with an intent stare. John could almost see the thoughts unspooling in Sherlock’s head, and for once, he thought he saw exactly where they were going. He shook his head. Sherlock stared even harder.

“ _No_ , Sherlock. Don’t take this the wrong way, but even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t. You’re not in your right mind.”

Understanding flickered across those pale eyes. “Ah, consent.”

“Exactly. You’re under the influence of quite a few things, and as such you can’t give informed consent to any kissing.”

“Boring.” Sherlock flipped dramatically to face the back of the sofa.

“No it isn’t, you git, it’s _important_.”

“I know,” said Sherlock, his voice muffled by cushions. “I wish it wasn’t.”

“No you don’t,” John said tolerantly. To his relief, Sherlock didn’t seem overly put out. “And, as the world seems intent on forgetting, I’m not gay.”

Sherlock sighed. Soon he was alternately tickling his own nose and then John’s with the fringe along the edge of one of the cushions.

John let a few hours pass while Sherlock amused them both with random deductions about the traces of past inhabitants in their flat. Finally, the detective’s voice began to slow and deepen, and John recognized the signs of impending sleepiness, unusual as it was to see them on Sherlock Holmes. At last. Once he could get Sherlock to go to sleep, he could have a lie-down without worrying about waking up to an incredibly impaired flatmate handling toxic chemicals or expensive equipment.

“Okay, that’s quite enough. Let’s change your clothes and get you into bed.” John stood his friend up and pushed him through the kitchen.

“Naked. Naked is good,” Sherlock murmured, stripping down as soon as he was inside the bedroom. It seemed he’d come back round to thinking about sex. Or, John realized, he had more likely never left it, had only been using a fraction of his brain to while the time away with deductions about scuffs on the floor and tears in the wallpaper.

“Pants are good,” John countered, holding out a clean pair and keeping his eyes trained above the waist.

Sherlock looked on, completely nude and completely indifferent to John’s offer. “You’ve got to check my stitches.”

“Nice try. I’m quite sure they’re fine. I am a very good doctor, remember.”

John gave up on the pants and reached around the other man to flip back the blankets. He applied a gentle but firm pressure to Sherlock’s shoulder. He managed to get Sherlock lying down and, with some relief, tugged the covers over his naked form.

“You’re putting me in bed.”

“Yes, I am, because you’ve got to sleep the rest of this off.”

“Then tell me a story.”

“What? Why?”

Sherlock’s head lolled about on the pillow impatiently. “Because you’re treating me like a child.” He paused. “And your voice. Sounds nice.”

This was the closest to a proper compliment Sherlock had ever paid him, and even given the circumstances, drugs and all, John felt himself softening. “All right, but in the spirit of childishness, I’m going to tell you Hansel and Gretel.” He fully expected Sherlock to scoff and suddenly dismiss the bedtime-story enterprise altogether.

Instead, much to John’s surprise, Sherlock folded his hands, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes expectantly.

More than once, John almost stopped the story out of feeling... well, unbearably stupid. But the sight of Sherlock’s features, placid and pleased in a way John had never seen them be, kept John talking. If a children’s story told in his voice could offer calm to the normally tempestuous surface of Sherlock’s mind, for whatever reason, drugs or otherwise, he felt he might as well comply.

Eventually, he finished and waited a moment, unsure of whether to leave silently or say something, like “goodnight” or “sleep well” or “now stay there and don’t try to do any experiments until you’re sober.” Before he could decide, his flatmate’s eyes snapped open. They glinted silver in the low light.

“Come here.”

John leaned in a few inches, suspiciously.

Sherlock grabbed his face, and John tensed.

Sherlock tutted. “Not going to kiss you.”

His face still held firmly in Sherlock’s hands, John managed a small nod. “So what’s this then?”

Sherlock drew him near, his lips moving minutely, like he was searching for a word he couldn’t quite think of.

“Thanks,” he offered at last. He drew out the “s” at the end.

“Wasn’t any trouble at all.”

“Liar.” There was a pause, and John waited for Sherlock to remember that he needed to let go of John’s ears before he could leave.

“Trust issues.” Sherlock’s voice was lower and softer now.

“Apparently I’ve got them,” was out of John’s mouth before he could think.

“Close your eyes.”

John hesitated.

“Nothing remotely sexual, yes, you’ve made it quite clear.”

“Okay, but just to review...”

Sherlock sighed. “Since you’re not gay and I can’t consent,” he said in that singsong voice he used when he was playing John’s part in the conversation as well as his own. “Five seconds. I mean it, John. Yes, I am the sociopath who’s high on illegal pharmaceuticals and talks to a human skull when you’re not around, but there’s something I want to do and I need you to _trust me_ for five seconds.”

It should have had the opposite effect, it really should have, but John’s eyes fluttered shut. His face was pulled lower, and Sherlock’s nose nudged his temple. The corner of his mouth (surprisingly soft, John couldn’t help but notice) touched the top of John’s cheek, the sensitive skin just under John’s eye.

True to his word, it wasn’t a kiss. More just a delicate press of his face against John’s. A blossom of breath spread over John’s eyelid and cheek, and John thought he understood.

This was thanks. It was (John let his eyes flutter shut) Sherlock’s way of distilling all trace of sex from a physical act of intimacy. Of course Sherlock’s version of thanks-for-being-my-friend would be exactly this weird. As if the man willfully disregarded the ways people normally said thanks—with a bottle of wine or a note or even a hug (without nuzzling, John’s mind helpfully offered)—it seemed Sherlock thought he had to invent friendship from scratch.

Then, the warmth of Sherlock’s skin was gone, and the lightest brush of something moved a few of John’s eyelashes. It could’ve been a lip, the tip of a tongue, his nose; the movement was so brief John couldn’t be sure. His head was released, and in the darkness it was easy to avoid making eye contact as he turned and made for the door.


End file.
